and being inclined to believe that
the fears of the females had given to the blowing of the wind, that
peculiar sound, insisted that there was no danger and that it would be
unpleasant to turn out then, as the night was very dark. Hearing
nothing after this, for which they could not readily account, the men
rose in the morning unapprehensive of interruption; and the females,
relieved of their fears of being molested by savages during the night,
continued in bed. Mr. Pindall walked forth to the woods to catch a
horse, and the young men went to the spring hard by, for the purpose
of washing. While thus engaged three guns were fired at them, and
Crawford and Wright were killed. Harrison fled and got safely to the
fort.

The females alarmed at the report of the guns, sprang out of bed and
hastened towards the fort, pursued by the Indians. Mrs. Pindall was
overtaken and killed, but Rachael Pindall, her sister-in-law, escaped
safely to the fort.

In June some Indians came into the neighborhood of Clarksburg, and not
meeting with an opportunity of killing or making prisoners any of the
inhabitants without the town, one of them, more venturous than the
rest, came so near as to shoot Charles Washburn as he was chopping a
log of wood in the lot, and then running up, with the axe, severed his
skull, scalped him, and fled safely away. Three of Washburn's brothers
had been previously murdered by the savages.

In August as Arnold and Paul Richards were returning to Richard's
fort, they were shot at by some Indians, lying hid in a cornfield
adjoining the fort, and both fell from their horses. The Indians
leaped over the fence immediately and tomahawked and scalped them.

These two men were murdered in full view of the fort, and the firing
drew its inmates to the gate to ascertain its cause. When they saw
that the two Richards' were down, they rightly judged that Indians had
done the deed; and Elias Hughes, ever bold and daring, taking down his
gun, went out alone at the back gate, and entered the cornfield, into
which the savages had again retired, to see if he could not avenge on
one of them the murder of his friends. Creeping softly along, he came
in view of them standing near the fence, reloading their guns, and
looking intently at the people at the fort gate. Taking [255] a
deliberate aim at one of them, he touched the trigger. His gun
flashed, and the Indians alarmed ran speedily away.

A most shocking scene was exhibited